Nintendo will add online multiplayer to Super Mario Maker 2, but there’s a slight catch: you can’t play with friends far from home, only with random players.
According to Nintendo World Report, a Nintendo representative at a press event last week clarified that online play can only be done with randoms, whether you’re looking to play cooperatively or competitively. If you want to play the game with your friends, it will have to be done via one Switch console or local wireless play with up to four systems.
Nintendo states that, with global leaderboards, playing with friends would compromise matchmaking for competitive play. Limiting online play to random players applies to co-op play as well even though it’s not leaderboard-based.
Nintendo has no plans to amend the online multiplayer limitations in Super Mario Maker to include playing with players on your friends list. If they do, they need only patch it in some time after the game’s launch.
Super Mario Maker 2 is a family-friendly game, and even with Nintendo bringing down the hammer on the creation of NSFW material within games that give players creative freedom to construct stages, not all parents are comfortable with their kids playing with complete strangers.
Super Mario Maker 2 releases June 28 on the Nintendo Switch. It was recently revealed during a Nintendo Direct that the game would feature a full story mode.
